The Czech Republic gives up on the EU – and foreign policy

Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek is justified in lamenting
economic inequality and low pay, but his EU-bashing conveniently hides the fact
that his own government has done little to address them.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek on 20th anniversary of the 'German-Czech Declaration on Mutual Relations and their Future Development', January 2017.Ralf Hirschberger/Press Association. All rights reserved. A recent interview with Czech
Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek has caused controversy and laid bare the
parlous state of foreign policy in the country. He lashed out at the European
Commission and European Parliament, advocated restrictions on free movement,
sympathised with Brexiteers and refused to accept that the Czech Republic
should shelter refugees.

Zaoralek has previously expressed strong
support for the EU and claims to have been misquoted, but his record in office
speaks for itself and tells the same, negative story as the interview:
unimaginative and small minded on major policy issues, uncooperative with
European institutions and key partners, as well as irresponsible with regard to
EU and Schengen membership. The interview and the wider foreign policy context
in the Czech Republic not only show the dangerous slide of the governing Social Democrats (CSSD) into nationalist populism but also the recklessly self-serving
and narrow minded attitude of much of the current Czech political elite. The newer, more closed stance mimics the responses of
some other social democratic parties across Europe.

The stance on refugees is depressingly
familiar, but Prague has previously supported free movement in principle, if
not to the extent of actually sharing the burdens as well as the benefits of
Schengen membership. The newer, more closed stance mimics the responses of some
other social democratic parties across Europe but also the more social nationalist
leanings of other Visegrad
Four (V4) governments.

Out of touch with reality

The social element of this new
alignment remains unconvincing, however. The V4, including the Czech Republic,
recently rejected EU-wide social and wage harmonisation measures that would
have boosted incomes and working conditions in the region. Similarly, curbing
free movement may appeal to nativist sentiments but is out of touch with
economic reality.

The Czech Republic boasts the lowest
unemployment rate in the EU (3.4%) and employers are pressuring the government
to accept more foreign workers to ease labour shortages. A recent Eurobarometer
survey shows that this is reflected in the public mood: Czechs’ fear of
unemployment is among the lowest in the Union.

Zaorálek is justified in lamenting
economic inequality and low pay, but his EU-bashing conveniently hides the fact
that his own government has done little to address them. The Social Democrats
have not acted to boost salaries, even in the public sector. Nor have they made
robust investments in research and education or used Czech economic ties with
Germany to social ends. It is worrying to
hear that Zaoralek’s main “lesson” drawn from Brexit is of the threat the British
supposedly felt from “2 million people coming from the East.”

It is worrying to hear that
Zaoralek’s main “lesson” drawn from Brexit is of the threat the British supposedly
felt from “2 million people coming from the East.” He may not realise it, but
for Brits, that East includes the Czech Republic. He must know, however, that this
‘threat’ was stirred-up by xenophobes rather than being backed-up by any
credible sociological or economic evidence. Ahead of Czech parliamentary
elections later this year, his ‘lesson’ reveals a particular form of nativist
populism at work.

Borderline populism in a ‘small’ country

As elsewhere, state borders are
held up in the Czech Republic as a symbol of the limits of the national
political community – and as lines of defence from foreign threats. The EU
represents a counter-view: the transformation of hostile relations between
national political communities into common membership of a larger, European
political community of common values in which nations of different sizes can
pursue their interests. Until recently Czechs generally saw the benefits of EU
membership, including free movement, as outweighing any costs from supposed loss
of control.

Now, however, the country’s top
diplomat has appropriated the populist rhetoric of enclosure, circling the
national(ist) wagons against foreign foes. It is hard to see what Zaoralek
admires about the EU (as he claims to) when he paints it as an alien ‘them’
opposing the Czech ‘us’ – a dictatorial outside force that sanctions the inflow
of threatening outsiders in the form of both foreign workers and refugees. This
‘externalised’ view of the EU – fashionable in the V4 – relates to Zaoralek’s
claims that the “big countries” make the deals and decisions that new EU
members, still not sufficiently respected, must accept.

This rhetoric (echoing Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski
and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán) cannot obscure the fact that Zaoralek has spent the
last three years as the foreign minister of an EU member state. He has had
ample opportunity to influence the very problems he describes. That he – and
his government colleagues – have manifestly failed to do so should elicit
self-reflection rather than lashing out at others in a populist, pre-election
spasm. He has had ample opportunity to influence
the very problems he describes.

There is, however, a persistent, inaccurate and
damagingly self-fulfilling belief in the Czech Republic that it is a small nation whose irrelevance is
matched only by the sense of victimhood stemming (partly) from Habsburg domination, Nazi occupation and Soviet suppression. Lately, albeit with some notable
exceptions, this has consistently manifested itself in a sense of disgruntled
impotence and buck passing which have fostered the ineffective yet self-serving
political elite epitomized by Zaoralek.

The Czech Republic is, in fact, a mid-ranking
EU state in wealth and population and needs to start acting like it. In the
past it has been able to leverage its EU membership to mobilize positions that
serve its interests as well as European values by being a responsible and
constructive partner. If it is to do so again, it needs to act its size in
foreign policy, which requires more than introverted, small-country populism
and bigger leaders than the current crop.

About the authors

Benjamin Tallis is Senior Researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. He edits the academic journal New Perspectives, regularly appears in European media and advises a variety of European and North American governments. tallis@iir.cz

Michal Kořan is a senior researcher at the
Institute of International Relations Prague and a former Fulbright visiting
scholar at the WCFIA Harvard University. He focuses on the role of the Central
European countries in European and Transatlantic politics.

Jakub Eberle is a senior researcher at the
Institute of International Relations, Prague, and a research fellow at Charles
University, Prague. He works on Czech and German foreign policy and theories of
international relations. He is the deputy editor-in-chief of New Perspectives.

Ondrej Ditrych is an assistant professor and
coordinator of the Deutsch Security Square research centre at the Charles
University, Prague. He previously worked at the Institute of International
Relations Prague and the EUISS (Paris) and was a Fulbright research fellow at
the Belfer Center, Harvard University.

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